Louise McSharry takes 6 months off to beat cancer

The 2FM star revealed this week that she has been diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma and will be off air until approximately May 2015 in order to undergo treatment.

The 31-year-old's colleague and former school mate Eoghan McDermott (29) admitted he was shocked by Louise's news, which she revealed on air with Ryan Tubridy.

"I was flabbergasted when I heard," he told the Herald.

"I'll be filling in for whoever is filling in for Louise when she's off, but it's all up in the air at the moment - we'll know more next week.

"She's taking six months as a definitive and obviously if she needs more than that afterward she can take it."

The friends attended the same secondary school and went on to study at University College Dublin together, before embarking on full time media careers.

"It was awful but the prognosis is very good.

"She's had a tough run - it's scary because we're the same age and you almost take your health for granted at this stage," he said.

transition

Eoghan has become a regular on RTE TV and radio since joining Kathryn Thomas as one of the presenters of The Voice of Ireland.

He is soon to front his own weekend programme on 2FM as part of their upcoming schedule and will also host a new science-based series called Drunk, which explores what happens to people when they drink alcohol, on RTE television.

Even though the anchor is currently based in Ireland with plenty to keep him busy, he insisted he's not planning on moving all his belongings back from his base in London.

Eoghan, who yesterday turned out for the launch of the 2014 Cannonball which takes place in September in aid of the Make A Wish foundation, has been residing in the UK for several years.

"All my stuff is still over in London, so I'm going over next week for a week to get a lot of it, but I'm going to leave quite a bit it over there - a couple of things are happening and hopefully one will ignite. We'll see what happens though," he said.